My memory-game is basically a copy of the original memory-game. 50 cards (25 matching pairs) are shuffled and placed on the table, facing down. The goal of the game is to collect the most pairs of cards.
Only that the pairs in my memory-game don’t really match.
For this work I made a list of events that I experienced together with another person. I handed this person the list with 25 more or less important experiences we experienced together and 25 sheets of paper. The person made 25 drawings out of his memory influenced on how he experienced these happenings.
To form the pairs of the memory-game I also made 25 drawings based on how I imagined these 25 experiences.
What came out is a memory-game that is unplayable even for the two people who made the game.
Subject of this work is the different perception of a situation. Two people experience the same situations but what they actually experience and remember is very different of each other.
The Souvenir Camera’s are small plastic toys. They have the form of a photo camera. In the inside of the camera a dia-positive is attached. On the dia-positive are eight pictures. The body of the camera works as a slide-projector.
By looking through the viewfinder of the camera one can see one of the eight images. By pulling down the “shutter” the image changes. There are two different styles of the Souvenir Camera, the black and the white body. And there are three topics of images in all of the cameras. One camera is showing pictures out of the “Heimat“ series, the second one shows pictures of “former concentration camps” in Germany and the third one is showing photos of the “former Inner-German boarder” that divided West Germany from East Germany until 1989.
The photos are made on black and white film. All photographs are made in 2008 and in 2009.
By looking through the camera one finds grey landscapes and buildings. There are almost no people present on the pictures. The places photographed seam almost left alone from society.
The “Amt für Kulturelle Ordnung” is established in 2009. The major task of the “Amt für Kulturelle Ordnung” is to make a clean sweep in the art world and give artists the opportunity to have unlimited guarantee on their art products.
If you want to make sure your piece of work can be categorized as true art. Please check the website of the “Amt für Kulturelle Ordnung“. There you can find information about the certification procedure and other important information about the organization.
Professionals will be testifying your work. If the work is ascribed as true art you will get a certificate that clarifies your piece of work as a true artwork. The work will also be take up into the database of the “Amt für Kulturelle Ordnung“.
In the work Image Concept one can find a neutral and emotionless description of an image, with information such as the location, the date and time, the weather condition and a little pencil drawing of what the place looked like when I was there.
To actually experience this image one has to follow the information and visit the place.
What I am trying to make clear with this work is that you cannot give an absolute definition of something. The places I visited in making this series do not have any emotional importance for me. Only the stories I’ve been told can give these places a meaning.
The basis for this series are old photographs taken by members of my family. Time, and its connected memories are recurring themes in these works. I find it fascinating to see that people see things very differently based on memories. These memories create a very unsure and speculative history, and this is visible in the works I create.
In the series Zurück in die Zukunft pairs of photographs are shown. These photographs were made in the same places, but many years apart. Both pictures are accompanied by written memories of the owner of the picture.
